Denigrating science to inflate the religious ego

As a scientist and a student of religion, I can say that most people do not really know what either is. Traditional religion in its more pure sense of understanding is completely beyond the grasp of many people today. They even go so far as to equate modern religious forms such as "fundamentalism" or the like with "traditional."

Some scientists and religious people alike have no capacity for actual thought and debate, let alone real groundbreaking research, and should be doing something else as they are a hindrance to both fields.

It would be useful to discard this dependence upon others making themselves clear to the reader. It is the reader's responsibility to discover, for himself, any meaning there is. It would also be useful to move beyond agree/disagree. With such a convention set in stone, one is forever unable to expand or adapt.

I appreciate that he took the time to clarify. Are you really trying to bring the hammer down on two people showing a little good will and civility? L

Not trying for anything. I do what I need to do in the interests of the forum as a whole. Which takes precedence over any individual's self interest, or babying anyone's fragile ego. I keep score of 'goodwill' as expressed here. Your own score is rather low, while Sr.Aquiles score is positively stratospheric. As you may have noticed, Wild's score was well into the minus numbers. So sad.

Nothing would please me more. Nobody needs you. The site is expressly about transcendence. And you don't get it. Transcendence from screaming infant to realized man, via the unlikely mediums of deathmetal and nihilism. So long.

Woa, isn't Wild a staff writer and contributor of actual content for this site? It's often I don't agree with his points, but we manage better than this exchange just here...

What do you mean 'nobody needs him' - if he's a writer, then of course he is needed?

It's a popular thing in some conservative circles (and this forum of late) to stand up for religion against the terrible onslaught of fanatical scientific atheism that's single-handily destroying Western Civilization. Oh dear.

While the merits of this are still to be seen, what's most intriguing to me are the ways in which people go about counter-acting this. Science is accused of being arrogant, of not being able to explain how we got here, and not being able to explain why we exist.

It's my challenge that all 3 of these are absurd.

To the first, science is actually the most humble discourse humans have ever attempted to understand "reality" - and certainly far more so than religion. Consider: science never says it has the final answer. It is always open to new evidence and contemplation of things which were heretofore considered ludicrous. Not only that, but it is based upon observing what can be perceived, in a careful and verifiable way.

Contrast this to religion, which inevitably claims final and complete knowledge. It is extraordinarily reactionary against anything that contradicts its dogma, and its methods are almost entirely subjective, relying on what's occurring in the internal nervous system of the individual, whether from a true shaman or a dishonest epileptic rabbi. The problem with this is that it is impossible to communicate what was experienced, as nothing is external to be observed.

To the second, while science cannot yet answer that question, it is collecting information and forming hypotheses, until enough evidence is gathered to justify a conclusion. That's called humbleness.

You know what isn't humble?

Declaring: "God made the universe in seven days, the Sun orbits the Earth, and if you don't agree, prepare to get toasted."

Now, on to the last point. It's here that the criticism is true: science can't explain why we exist. However, why I think this charge is absurd is because nothing else can either. Sure, you can invent all sorts of reasons/explanations/bullshit, collect them in a holy book, and off you go; but that doesn't make it true.

What's particularly funny is that the people who do that call others arrogant!

I'm very much in favour of the suggestion that a certain scientific outlook is clearly (with a bit of reflection on this concepts) more reverent, and ego-less than some 'spirituality'.

Science is suspending judgement that derives from older cognitive tendencies, intuitive/natural/unreflective cognition, that evolved to get us fucking and fleeing and eating. Science is about cultivating cognitive habbits that are by their very nature unnatural - and so transcendental - which is why you can teach a 5 year old child a religious narrative but learning physics takes you 25 years of painful education (read: brute overcoming of implicit ways of thinking to learn new and more powerful/objective cognitive tricks).

Nothing could be more reverent of prior structures, reality, Being, than going through such a process in order to comprehend it more fully. Nothing could be more religious?!

Common to those who lack understanding and to those who have it is a desire to know- despite the strong differences between such notions. This is the great fault as I see it- the desire to know is quite often embattled by the things we cannot know through this desire.

I like to think that when things mean differently to varying individuals something akin to 'coal to diamonds' makes itself known.

___

I dislike sectarianism though, because understanding is common to all fields of inquiry- though fields are all artificialized. We could probably translate this thread title into something a bit less 'specific' and more common to certain relative positions. Sorry for the obfuscation here, it's hard for me to put into words what I mean.

Common to those who lack understanding and to those who have it is a desire to know- despite the strong differences between such notions. This is the great fault as I see it- the desire to know is quite often embattled by the things we cannot know through this desire.

I like to think that when things mean differently to varying individuals something akin to 'coal to diamonds' makes itself known.

___

I dislike sectarianism though, because understanding is common to all fields of inquiry- though fields are all artificialized. We could probably translate this thread title into something a bit less 'specific' and more common to certain relative positions. Sorry for the obfuscation here, it's hard for me to put into words what I mean.

This can be a problem. One needs to be/do/exist as well as grasp at the unknown. However, this desire to 'be', to be 'thoughtless' or, what is basically the same, 'at peace', is more or less itself just a desired state (desired by the 'ego', if this is even an objectively real entity at all which of course it isn't - the brain is much more complex than 2 or 3 tendencies) - desired, in this case, because it leads to good mental health/pleasantness/etc. You could get this by finding the perfect drug, perhaps call this perfect drug 'SOMA', and imagine that it could be taken every few hours with no long term side effects and that it keeps you 'in the flow, man, with being'.

Contrast this, the 'spiritual', 'being at one', 'inner peace', etc, with gazing into the abyss of the universe to understand it. Casting the spiritual in the light of a desired, human-all-to-human state of feeling, I think brings it off its high horse.

Nothing would please me more. Nobody needs you. The site is expressly about transcendence. And you don't get it. Transcendence from screaming infant to realized man, via the unlikely mediums of deathmetal and nihilism. So long.

Woa, isn't Wild a staff writer and contributor of actual content for this site? It's often I don't agree with his points, but we manage better than this exchange just here...

What do you mean 'nobody needs him' - if he's a writer, then of course he is needed?

Am I missing something here?

I think Jon is just banned from the forum. Not sure if he will continue contributing to the front page.

Nothing would please me more. Nobody needs you. The site is expressly about transcendence. And you don't get it. Transcendence from screaming infant to realized man, via the unlikely mediums of deathmetal and nihilism. So long.

Woa, isn't Wild a staff writer and contributor of actual content for this site? It's often I don't agree with his points, but we manage better than this exchange just here...

What do you mean 'nobody needs him' - if he's a writer, then of course he is needed?

Am I missing something here?

I think Jon is just banned from the forum. Not sure if he will continue contributing to the front page.

What a stupid state of affairs. And he just recommended me a book in pvt message, which I wanted to thank him for doing, and now can't.

To the first, science is actually the most humble discourse humans have ever attempted to understand "reality" - and certainly far more so than religion.

If science were practiced this way, it would be great.

The problem occurs when science takes a detail and reads more into it than is there.

If correctly interpreted, science is agnostic. Not atheistic.

I refuse to partake in any religious ritual that isn't in parallel with logic (actual logic, not rationalization) and natural reality.

This is why I'm a goddamn monist.

Crow is too, although he doesn't like using that term for it. (Note: my trust of Crow is based on who he is as a person, not his religious beliefs, non-religious beliefs, vinyl collection -- sweet FAOD brah -- or anything other non-intrinsic trait. I have a similar belief in Jon Wild although I know less of him.)

Before we dramatize this... let's consider context and how to make something positive out of it.

Woa, isn't Wild a staff writer and contributor of actual content for this site? It's often I don't agree with his points, but we manage better than this exchange just here...

What do you mean 'nobody needs him' - if he's a writer, then of course he is needed?

Am I missing something here?

I think Jon is just banned from the forum. Not sure if he will continue contributing to the front page.

Contribution is no excuse to wreck the works. Yes. You are missing quite a lot. Nobody needs childish tantrums. If it were possible to exclude someone only from this forum, and not site-wide, then that would be the case. Unfortunately the software does not allow for such distinctions.

What a stupid state of affairs. And he just recommended me a book in pvt message, which I wanted to thank him for doing, and now can't.

Well. That's too bad. Do you think everything should be organized around your convenience? If you're grateful, then that's enough, in itself. Even more so, since you've made it public. Only ego demands to be able to be seen to deliver the message personally.

What we see here, once again, is the intellectual using what he calls 'reason' only as a tool to get what he wants. Reason, to the intellectual, signals to him that he is right. And being right, everybody must recognize that. He will stick to this delusion even unto his own extinction, because it is reason, and he is being reasonable.

But he isn't. He's being an ignorant halfwit.

Reason, actually, includes the ability to not follow one's fellow brain cells over the cliff of doom, like just another silly lemming.

I can't help but notice, time and again, that atheism, mixed with intellect, removes from people their ability to get along with each other.